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Gua Sha Practicum and Safety

In the Gua sha Practicum, participants will be taught and tested on Gua sha application techniques for specific areas of the body. The Gua sha Practicum is required to complete the Gua sha Certification Course. Certification lecture modules can be taken online with ProD Seminars: http://guasha.com/project/gua-sha-certification/. This format was adopted because it became impossible to teach Gua sha over a weekend. Moreover, background information in lecture format can be presented and learned by anyone around the world. When a participant signs up they have 2 years to complete the 11 Gua sha modules online. Time with Dr. Nielsen can then focus on actual practical skills and treatment of patients in the Gua sha Practicum. Successful completion of the Gua sha Practicum qualifies a participant to a discount on the ProD Gua sha Certification Module package. The Gua sha Certification course and Practicum are specifically designed for practitioners who want to deepen their knowledge and skill in Gua sha.

Modern research shows Gua sha produces an anti-inflammatory and immune protective effect that persists for days following a single Gua sha treatment. This accounts for its effect on pain, stiffness, fever, chill, cough, wheeze, nausea and vomiting etc., and why Gua sha is effective in acute and chronic internal organ disorders and disease including liver inflammation in hepatitis, renal, lung, cardiovascular disease and so on.

Acupuncturists know Gua sha as a healing technique of traditional East Asian medicine used in treating blood stasis. Sometimes called ‘coining, spooning or scraping’, Gua sha is defined as instrument-assisted unidirectional press-stroking of a lubricated area of the body surface to intentionally create transitory therapeutic petechiae called ‘sha’ representing extravasation of blood in the subcutis. The process of raising petechiae and their absorption is key in understanding the mechanism of healing that is Gua sha.

COURSE OBJECTIVES DAY ONE
1) Teach, demonstrate Gua sha application techniques.
2) Check off each participant on specific Gua sha Practicum set of skills.
3) Guide students and practitioners in the process on becoming Gua sha practitioners.

Acupuncture therapies have a relative risk that is low. The reporting of adverse events in clinical trials as well as safety surveys has helped establish a positive safety record for acupuncture needling in the West. Patients may experience minor side effects such as feeling relaxed, elated, tired, or having point sensation or itching etc. or slight bleeding and hematoma on needle withdrawal.

Yet deaths have resulted from acupuncture treatment as well as serious infections, organ punctures and other complications clarifying that acupuncture carries a risk of harm. Many acupuncture professionals are not aware of the published cases of acupuncture harms because they may not read the medical literature in general and because cases of harm are not necessarily reported by or back to the practitioner who caused them. They appear in medical journals often as emergency department cases and acupuncture therapy is represented as risky and irresponsible. What is the truth?

Acupuncturists occupy a comfort zone that if there is potential risk of harms, harms will not likely be caused by them. But the risk of harms exists every day in every practice. Mitigating risk and preventing even one incidence of harm is worth a review. An overview of case reports of harms (infections, traumatic lesions to organ, vessel, nerve tissue, bleeding and ‘curious adverse events’) attributed to acupuncture needling along with recommendations for safe practice are detailed. A review of Safety Guidelines for Gua sha and Ba guan will also be detailed.

UNDERVISER
Arya Nielsen has a doctorate in Philosophies of Medicine with a focus on Integrative Clinical Science and Health Care. She is US board certified in acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine and past chair of the New York State Board for Acupuncture. She has been in private practice since 1977 and is on Faculty at Mount Sinai Beth Israel Department of Integrative Medicine in New York City, where she is director of the Acupuncture Fellowship for Inpatient and Hospital-based care. Dr. Nielsen is the author of the revised text (2012) Gua Sha, A Traditional Technique for Modern Practice, Churchill Livingstone Elsevier, and the Gua sha Certification Course. Dr. Nielsen is involved in ongoing research related to acupuncture therapies for pain and including for underserved populations. She lectures on Classical Chinese medicine and topics related to Integrative practice in the US and Europe and can be contacted by email at anielsen@chpnet.org or at her website www.guasha.com.